Modern medical care often involves the use of medication management systems, which include medication delivery and monitoring devices such as medication delivery pumps and/or patient condition monitors. Medication management systems for configuring, controlling, and monitoring medication delivery devices have been disclosed. For example, commonly owned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/930,358, which published as US20050144043A1 on Jun. 30, 2005 and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/783,573, which published as US20050278194A1 on Dec. 15, 2005, disclose a medication management system in which customizable drug library or medical device configuration information is prepared using a drug library editor (DLE) program and module of a medication management unit (MMU). The MMU downloads the customizable drug library to the medication delivery pump and receives status or activity information from the pump. Commonly owned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/783,877, which also published as WO2005050526A2 on Jun. 2, 2005, discloses how the drug library or medical device configuration information is created, edited, stored and communicated to a medication delivery device in the context of a medication management system to deliver substances, such as fluids and/or fluid medication to patients. According to the above-mentioned commonly owned published patent applications, a typical medication management system includes a point of care computer, such as a barcode point of care computer and/or pharmacy computer, and/or an MMU, in communication with one or more medication delivery devices. The point of care computer(s) and/or the MMU, with associated memory, store various information, such as patient information, prescription information, customized drug library or other information, for managing medication delivery to a patients, such as performing five-rights checking, configuring the medication delivery devices, and receiving and storing activity information received from the medication delivery devices.
As mentioned, the medication delivery devices can include electronic medical pumps. The medical pumps can be used with PCA (patient controlled analgesia) request devices in which a patient can “self-deliver” medication, such as an analgesia or analgesic. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,551,133, to Zeggers de Beyl et al., issued Nov. 5, 1985, discloses a patient controlled analgesia system for introducing medication to a peripheral vein of a patient. The patient can request the administration of an analgesic or analgesia by using a PCA request device. The delivery of the analgesic is controlled by a microprocessor based system in response to the patient's physiological conditions. Specifically, the microprocessor is associated with a remote patient control or PCA request device, for providing an actuation signal to the microprocessor when the patient requests a delivery of medication. Modern PCA pumps can also be programmed by caregivers to limit the response of the pump to a delivery request in terms of bolus amount or volume allowed, duration, frequency or lockout interval between boluses, and hourly limit.
Quite often, PCA pumps are used in post-operative settings after a patient has become conscious but is or would be in significant pain without the delivery of the analgesic. In addition, quite often, these patients are no longer held in a separate post-operative recovery area with limited visitation privileges. Instead, such patients are often placed within standard patient rooms and allowed regular visitation by friends and relatives. Some patients even use PCA pumps for pain management at their homes or in a hospice setting. Therefore, in many cases, patients, as well as their friends and relatives, are not directly supervised when the patient requests delivery of medication, such as an analgesic, using the PCA request device. In such setting, an overzealous relative or friend may attempt to utilize the PCA request device on behalf of or as a proxy for the patient, such as for example when the patient is sleeping or unconscious. While perhaps well intentioned, these actions can lead to significant injury to the patient.
Thus, one objective of the present invention is the provision of at least a method and system for patient controlled analgesic medication delivery to the patient and for monitoring the delivery of medication to a patient.
All of the patents and patent application referred to within this Background of the Invention section of the present specification are hereby incorporated by reference and made a part of this specification. In addition, the present invention is provided to solve the problems discussed above and, to provide advantages and aspects not provided by prior medical systems, as well as achieve other objects not explicitly stated above. A full discussion of the features, advantages and objects of the present invention is deferred to the following detailed description, which proceeds with reference to the accompanying drawings.